Diplomacy and International Politics

The Project on Europe hosted a post-COP 26 discussion about how European integration of a climate change agenda is now at the very center of its political project. Europe is exiting almost two decades of existential crisis during which it lost its narrative: it no longer had a compelling story to tell. It has now found it once again. Today, a green Europe represents a normative vision, an economic growth strategy, as well as a route to a political Union: it promises to be the new narrative to revive the European project. Precisely because it is so existential for the future of Europe, getting both the story and the practice right is crucial. This is a tall order.

A normative vision for the future, it represents both a clear growth strategy and a route to a political union for the bloc. Yet, as has been made clear at the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow this week, the EU — responsible for only around 8 percent of global emissions — is but a small part of the global picture. And a green Europe can only be realized if it’s a global one too.  

Unilateralism and isolationism are making a comeback in the United States. Are Trump and his America First approach to the world a cause or a symptom? What are the ideological sources of the intimate connection between isolationism and the American experience? Will the COVID-19 pandemic undercut or deepen globalization? What impact will it have on U.S. grand strategy? The United States seems headed for an inevitable pullback of its global commitments. What should retrenchment look like? Can Americans find the middle ground between doing too much and doing too little?

For months, the coronavirus has crawled across the globe. One person at a time, it has passed through millions, reaching every corner of the earth. And it has not only infected people, but every aspect of our human cultures. Policymakers and the public sector face their biggest test in generations—some say ever—as lives and livelihoods hang in a terrible, delicate balance. Facing health crises, economic collapse, social and political disruption, we try to take stock of what the pandemic has done and will do. We asked Harvard Kennedy School faculty, in fields ranging from climate change to international development, from democracy to big power relations, to tell us how this epochal event has changed the world.

Given the ravages of the coronavirus crisis, the future of Europe cannot be one of permanent division between its northern and southern states.

February 24th, 2020, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Gesche Joost, Professor of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts and head of the Design Research Lab since 2005, discussed the digital divide and how it will shape social connectivity in an event moderated by Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, and Lauren Zabierek, Executive Director of the Cyber Project.

Nicholas Burns speaks to BBC World about how global politics will change as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

The world has never before confronted a crisis quite like COVID-19, one that has simultaneously tested both the limits of public health systems everywhere and the ability of countries to work together on a shared challenge. But it is in just such moments of crisis that, under all prior U.S. presidents since World War II, the institutions of U.S. foreign policy mobilize for leadership. They call nations to action. 

In Finland, they’re drinking boxed wine and playing Korona, a board game. In Greece, they’re stockpiling feta. The French refuse to stop kissing. ISIS is telling its members to avoid traveling to Europe to conduct attacks. And, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hand-washing stations are everywhere; they know the drill.

Often, crises are moments of truth. Some leaders prove in these moments to be up to the stakes, others collapse. The forces behind decisions, interests and ideologies become clearer. President Tump's solemn address to the American nation on Wednesday evening on the coronavirus crisis deserves a special mention. On that day, Donald Trump was preparing to put an end to the world economy as we knew it.